ABSTRACT
The steel industry has a long history of public intervention and private, restrictive business practices. This chapter provides how policy-makers at the national, regional, and international levels have reacted to the pressures exerted in both the domestic and international spheres by structural changes in the industry. The decline in demand after 1974 resulted in large-scale surplus capacity, mainly in Europe and Japan. In 1978 and 1979 the performance of the US producers improved, owing to the improved market conditions and the trigger price mechanism introduced by the government in early 1978. The steel producers in the European Community assume an intermediate position between the Japanese and the Americans in terms of growth. The Community's policy on steel comprised not only short-term anticrisis measures, but also a policy on how the industry should restructure in the longer term to achieve a balance between supply and demand and reestablish international competitiveness.
